Materials Research with SPM

This section is devoted to Scanning Probe Microscopy applications for determination of various material properties.

Scanning Tunneling and Scanning Force Microscopies with many enhancements form the basis of the SPM generation. 3-dimensional measurments of surface topography and/or imaging of structural features being on the samples at nanoscale are mature applications of these methods. In addition to topography and often simultaneously with it, Scanning Probe Microscopy allows revealing a number of mechanical, magnetic, electrical and other material properties. Great many of these can not be monitored and measured by other methods on the micrometer scale, not to mention the nanometer scale.

Reviews on characterization of Mechanical and Electrical properties are available in the Library section. Among representatives of the SPM family, attention is paid to the methods and techniques in which conventional silicon or similar AFM probes are used. Thus, the powerful method of Scanning Near-field Optical Microscopy (SNOM) and others are left beyond the scope of this survey.

Reviews on biological applications of SPM can be found in the Biology section.